Connecticut Film Festival 2009

Jason Van Gumster, Hand Turkey Studios

Jason got into animation when he realized that he wanted to create movies... but that actors are generally intolerant of having pianos dropped on them. As a Production Monkey for his company, Hand Turkey Studios, Jason has produced animations and visual effects for television, film, and video games. With a couple rare exceptions, he exclusively uses open source tools such as Blender, GIMP, and Inkscape for each facet of the production process.

Most active in the Blender community, Jason wrote "Blender For Dummies", released in February of 2009. He's given numerous international workshops and demonstrations on Blender and his "Advanced Blender Fluids" training DVD from cmiVFX is well-recognized as one of the best learning resources for Blender's integrated fluid simulator.

In January of 2008, Jason worked with the Blender Foundation to assemble the Blender Certification Review Board and lead the launch of the Blender Foundation Certified Trainer (BFCT) program. He also periodically writes for Blender Nation, the primary news website for Blender users.

When not doing crazy things like trying to produce a 4 to 7-minute animated short in a mere 48 hours, Jason can often be found in cafés and diners drawing, espousing the virtues of free and open source software, or catching confused looks from strangers as he contorts his body to better visualize a scene he's animating.